You Have One New Message
by ficdirectory
Summary: Part 9 of the Paris series. After Prentiss "died", Garcia kept leaving her voice mails. **1st Place tie: Best Friendship Fic in the 2011 Favorite Fic Awards at LiveJournal** **Nominated: Best Tragedy/Angst in the 2011 Favorite Fic Awards at LiveJournal**


Garcia knows Emily won't get these, but it doesn't matter. She sends them anyway. She can't help it. It's her way of keeping a connection with the friend she has lost.

On March 7th, she leaves one, and just cries. No words come. On March 9th, the same thing. That's the day they bury her.

A week later, Garcia finds she can speak: "Hey, Em. I went to your apartment to get Sergio, but Derek already got him. I'm going to do my best to get him back, though...I miss you..."

"Hey, it's April 4th. I rescued Sergio from my main man's house. Things were bleak there. Things are bleak here, but I am trying to keep things around that remind him of you. Thank God you left that jacket here. Sergio sleeps on it now in his kitty bed. He's not really eating. Neither am I. We're sad. We miss you..."

On April 7th, Garcia is numb: "Well, it's been a month. God, we miss you. It's so empty around work without you. Without JJ. I have Ashley here, but it's not the same as my ladies."

April 12th, the grief hits: "Emily, I miss you so much...I'm pissed at you and I miss you and I wish you would just know that we're here and we love you and we would have done anything we could to help you."

May 7th, somehow, it is even worse than usual. Garcia can hardly speak through the crush of sadness: "We're still here. Wish you were..."

There are no new messages until June 27th: "Hey. Good news. Sergio turned a corner. I think he's gonna be okay. He's eating and starting to play again. Sorry it's been so long I just...it's so hard to hear your voice, and know that you're, like, not coming back... But you wouldn't want me to get stuck in the sadness. So, I'm calling to let you know that it's a beautiful day. Wherever you are, I hope it's beautiful, too."

July 7th: "I hate the seventh of each month now. Which sucks, because it totally used to be my favorite number. Somehow it lost all its appeal. There are changes in the air. JJ's back. You'd be happy to know that. She misses you, too, but I worry about her. Well, I just wanted to say hey. So, hey."

August 17th: "I couldn't do the seventh this month, so I thought the seventeenth had a nice ring to it. What do you think? I miss you so much, Emily. I think all the time about our last real conversation. How you said that you had that bad dream and then later, how I always made you smile...and you thanked me. Did you know then? Did you know you were going to give yourself up so that I...so that we...could be spared?"

September 4th: "Things are crazy busy. I'm not so mad anymore. You know, what I said in my last message? About how you were glad I made you smile? Well, funny enough, that's the one thing I remember most clearly about you. The pain is fading. But you are still missed. Love you, chickadee."

There are no more messages, because on September 22nd, Emily walks through the door of the roundtable room, with the world in her eyes. And oh, so much sadness.

But she's here. She's here and that's all that matters.

It's only by chance that Emily finds the phone, shoved the back of her old desk drawer at the BAU two weeks after she returns. Only by chance that she decides to check it, to see if it still works, after seven months. Apparently, someone has been paying her bills while she's been gone. That, or she's lucky.

What Emily expects is for the automated voice to tell her that her voicemail box is empty. That, or, "You have one new message."

But no. She has eleven. She doesn't know how they are still there. Perhaps another stroke of fortune, she thinks, until she plays them. Then, she has to find a chair. She has to sit. Because the automated voice scares the shit out of her:

_First saved message sent on Monday, March 7__th__._

Then it's Garcia's broken voice. She sobs for five minutes. Emily forces herself to listen to all of it. This is her punishment for leaving them. For being rash. For pissing of Doyle. For everything. Two days later, there is a second message, too similar to the first. Emily does the math in her head and realizes why Garcia sounds even more upset than usual. That's the day the buried…whatever the hell they buried. It wasn't her. But that's not what matters right now. Because, clearly, Garcia thought it was. Clearly, she grieved a loss that was very real and very painful.

Tears are falling down Emily's own cheeks and she is grateful that she is alone at her desk. That the rest of her team isn't due for sometime.

On March 14th, Garcia tells Emily that Morgan took Sergio. Emily's eyebrows furrow slightly. Why would Morgan have taken Sergio? And then she remembers the message she left impulsively on his phone in the days before everything went to hell. She said something about pets. It had been a message to him. She is grateful that he was able to decode it, but more grateful that Garcia had Sergio in the long run.

Three weeks later, she leaves a message that she rescued Sergio from Morgan's. Garcia talks about the brown leather jacket Emily forgot she owned that she must have left over there. She says Sergio sleeps on it at night. She says they miss her. Garcia sounds dangerously depressed.

Emily presses her lips together and listens on.

Three days later, on April 7th, Garcia's voice sounds soft and hollow. It is strange without her typical inflection. She says some words that Emily doubts she still remembers, about work being lonely without her and JJ. She says, Ashley is here, but it's not the same without "her ladies." That last part is the only thing that sounds even a little like Garcia.

By now, Emily has stopped trying to wipe her tears. She lets them run down her cheeks as she listens to the next message, sent five days after the previous one. Now, Garcia is mad. She wants to know why Emily didn't rely on them. Why Emily didn't know that they would have done whatever they could to help her. But that's exactly why Emily _hadn't _said anything. Her team would have laid down their lives for her, and Emily would never allow that. Not if she could help it. Not if she could save them first.

Two months after Emily was stabbed, there is the shortest message. It brings the hair up on the back of Emily's neck: "We're still here. Wish you were…" The thing is, Garcia sounds dangerously close to not being there. Her voice is flat and emotionless, as if she has spent several days in bed with a depressed Sergio - neither of them eating.

There isn't another message until the end of June. In this one, Garcia sounds more like herself. Thank God. She says Sergio has turned a corner. It sounds like Garcia has, too. At the end, when Garcia tells her it's a beautiful day and hopes Emily's day is beautiful, wherever she is - Emily chokes back a sob…

The last three messages let Emily know that Garcia is healing. She is keeping busy. Back at work. Working through her grief at her own pace and doing things that work for her.

"The pain is fading, but you are still missed…" Garcia's voice says in her ear.

_There are no new messages_, the automated voice tells Emily abruptly. She stows the phone in the back of the drawer again and takes off at a near-run for Garcia's office.

She opens the door and finds Garcia staring at her many screens. There is the sound of rolling chair wheels on concrete as she turns and takes in Emily's face.

Emily watches, silent, as Garcia gets up deliberately from her chair and slowly crosses the distance between them.

"I got your messages…" Emily offers in a shaky voice.

"My… Oh, my God… I didn't mean… I mean, that wasn't- You weren't supposed to hear those-"

Garcia's words are cut off as Emily embraces her friend. She wishes she had the words to convey how sorry she is. But words fail her.

So instead, they just hold each other, and in those moments something else comes back to her.

Emily remembers the first message. The one she received earlier on March 7th. In the car while preparing to ambush Doyle. Garcia had reassured her in that moment that she was not alone, that they were all with her and if she could see them, to come home but if she couldn't, Garcia told her to stay alive, because they were coming.

That was the single message Emily held onto in her head. That message got her through seven months of hell. Pain, recovery, isolation from everyone she loved. There had been many moments when she wanted to give up, but she would remember that message and vow to stay undercover just a little longer. She poured herself into art, painting her team in subtlety - the only way she dared.

"I'm sorry," Emily apologizes, though she knows it's not enough to make up for all the pain she has put them through.

"But you're here," Garcia says, fresh wonder still in her eyes as she stares at Emily. "You're here and that's all that matters…"


End file.
